Why we Fail at Changing Ourselves?

by Luqman Khan ·
Published December 16, 2016
· Updated December 16, 2016

A colleague, who has also became a good friend of mine over time, asked me yesterday, “Why do I fail at changing myself while you were able to transform yourself so easily?”

“Easily?” I asked, “Why do we want everything to happen easily?”

This very human nature of finding comfort and ease is actually doing us more harm than good. Not everything is meant to be easy but if we want everything to easy. We need to make it easy by working harder and knowing more about it. But what we actually do is that we give up things which aren’t easy!

Now, this whole concept may not be easy to understand. But, let’s try to get deeper in it. We want everything without giving up anything. Because, if it happens this way then this would make us feel very easy about it. We don’t want to go through the struggle of taking small steps and showing perseverance in the course of trials and errors and then to learn and improve from them. We want to reach there NOW. Without making any mistakes. We want it the whole, we want it now and we want it without giving up anything.

Does that ring any bells? This shows not only how greedy we are but also how impatient we are. Patience is the most underrated variable in the equation of success. A tree doesn’t grow in a day. Castles are not built in a day. You can’t just simply transform in a day. Just take it out of your mind that one day you’ll wake up and everything you want in life would be there. That all the positive habits, personality and character traits you always wanted to adopt would be there in you. No, you have to work your way towards your ideals. Just like you walk one step at a time. You have to change yourself one day at a time.

You want to be an achiever then you need to instill the warrior mindset. There has been no warrior who would opt for a big one-battle war. Because, that is not how wars are won. A warrior first fights and tries to win small battles. Even, if he loses it doesn’t matter. Because a. a small loss is bearable and b. the loss teaches him a lesson. That is how he calculates the power of his enemy and then strategizes for the next battle. He keeps on doing this and he keeps on learning about his enemy by winning and losing small battles until he is so learned about his enemy that he can win against the whole army of his enemy in a single battle. Sun Tzu discussed this in detail in his ancient book The Art of War.

Instead, of trying to be a hero. It’s better to try to be a warrior. Because, the hero has to win and that creates an enormous amounts of pressure on our brains. When, the stress level is high then naturally the human brain wants to get rid of it as soon as possible. Because that is how brains are designed. They try to hold on to the things that make us happy and give up the things that take away happiness from us. So, instead of pushing ourselves harder what we do in front of this enormous pressure is that we give up. We actually make it harder for us than easier. Because, we all want to be heros and we all want to be remarkable and remembered.

An alternative approach is to instill the warrior mindset. A warrior doesn’t care to be remembered. A warrior doesn’t want to be celebrated or be remembered as a remarkable person. He just wants to do the right thing. He wants to defend the honor. He just wants to give it his best and expects no return. Even the idea of being victorious doesn’t fascinate him. Because, it comes at the cost of too much blood of both friends and enemies spilt. What ignites his passion is doing the right thing and doing it now with all his heart. More, importantly to keep doing the right thing.

That kind of mindset actually makes it easy to achieve things. Because, this doesn’t create pressure and stress on mind but this actually relives mind of stress. Because, there is nothing lost if you lose. There is nothing gained if you win. What really matters is you keep on going and you keep on doing the right thing.

As I like to say it,

“A warrior can not get satisfied. Because the moment he rests, is the moment he is put to rest.”

But a hero .. He wants to rest and he wants to make it there fast, completely and without giving up anything. Because, he is a hero and he feels entitled to win.

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